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Classic Mysteries—Alternate Perceptions Magazine, March 2015

Extraterrestrials in the life of one Professor John R. Salter, Jr.

by: Brent Raynes

John Salter/Hunter

Back in 1989, when I initially corresponded and conversed on the phone with then University of North Dakota Professor John R. Salter, Jr., 55, of Grand Forks, he told me that he was “absolutely convinced” in the reality of extraterrestrial visitors after his own life-changing encounter the year before.

It was late afternoon, March 20, 1988. Professor Salter and his then nearly 23-year-old graduate student son, John III, had stopped at McDonald’s at La Crosse, Wisconsin. They were on a trip headed for Mississippi and New Orleans, and they felt “fully awake, vigorous, (and) well-fed” as they continued on their journey down combined highways 14 and 61. Soon though a “curtain of amnesia,” as Prof. Salter called it, would unexpectedly descend around their minds. Late afternoon suddenly became evening. It was twilight, around 6:25 p.m., when they found themselves on a short four-lane stretch of Highway 14, a few miles from Richland Center, Wisconsin. Then amnesia struck again and next it was about 7:45 p.m. and Prof. Salter was then aware of again being behind the wheel of his Ford pickup, only a mile from where the four-lane highway had ended, not far outside Richland Center.
Pushing on father and son spent the night at Peoria, Illinois. The next morning, March 21, they continued on. They hadn’t gone far when, at 10:14 a.m., they saw a UFO. Prof. Salter recalled: “We both saw a bright, expanding light coming directly toward and above us. Immediately we realized it was an incredibly bright object, glowing with an extraordinary shimmering silveriness. (The closest analogy I can make is the glowing coals of an oak fire, moving back and forth) It was about two-thirds the size of the full double highway and, when about 200 yards from us, swerved slightly and rose over the pickup truck at an angle. We could now make out its saucer-like form and, I think, a slight dome. Then, with incredible speed, it was gone. At that point, John III and I had three simultaneous thoughts: this was a deliberate appearance for us and for us alone; this was quite friendly; and this somehow explained the strange occurrences of the previous night.”

In late June of that year, Prof. Salter suddenly began to recall what had occurred during the “missing time” in dreams and “flashbacks.” His son began to have recall of the incident a little later, in November, at times when he would be drifting off to sleep.

Their memories dovetailed. They both recalled the same essential details. They remembered standing outside their truck, which was parked on a dirt road. It was nearly dark, and inspite of the isolation and unfamiliarity of the location, they were completely at ease. In addition, stranger yet, they recalled several 4 - 4 ½ foot tall, slender humanoid beings with comparatively large heads and large “quasi-slanted eyes” along with a taller, more “human” humanoid nearly six foot tall. Interestingly, none of this disturbed them either!

“Our communication with them is more than thought-impressionistic; it’s telepathically specific,” Professor Salter pointed out. “John III sits down. Three of the small humanoids gather around, viewing him with as much fascination as he does them. Everyone is very pleasant. Now we are walking through the dark woods to the UFO which is some distance from the pickup.”
Prof. Salter remembers a “brightly lit room” and a “deep, blue glowing panel.” In addition, he recalls: “An implant is placed up very carefully into my right nostril and beyond. There is also a strong sense that the last time this happened to me was a long time ago, when I was John III’s age, in 1957.”

Next Professor Salter remembers that they were being escorted back to the pickup by the tall humanoid. “The feeling is downright powerful that the meeting has gone very well indeed from everyone’s standpoint,” he recalls. “I feel a strong, poignant sense of farewell toward the tall figure, sensing reciprocity. The perception is strong for us all that we will see one another again in another meeting in another time.”

So after this dramatic March 1988 encounter, beginning in late April of that year, Professor Salter noted “at least 18 positive physiological changes…all continuing.” These included a rapid increase in head hair, finger and toenail growth, eyebrows became very thick, with “fine body hair” over previously “almost hairless arms, legs, stomach, and chest”; his beard became heavy, thick, and dark for the first time; his circulation improved; overall health seemed much better. Another odd physiological occurrence was a “red welt” that appeared occasionally on the right side of his neck. He noted that it often showed up when he would be “thinking intensely about the March 1988 encounters.”

Psychic phenomena, no stranger to the professor, increased after the 1988 incident. “I have had some psychic experiences consistently since I was a very small child,” Professor Salter explained. “Telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance.”

Professor Salter admits that while he knew about UFOs prior to his 1988 encounter, and had in fact accepted the reality of UFOs and even knew about the Betty and Barney Hill case of 1961, he had not ever “spent much time at all thinking about any of this.” He did recall that the Hill’s had been “an interracial couple both much involved in civil rights and related activities.”

Salter had been an “active organizer in social justice endeavors since the mid-1950s” and was on his way to New Orleans to deliver a paper entitled “Civil Rights and Self-Defense,” when the UFO “interception” had occurred. “I recalled, too, that Mrs. Hill especially had had a positive, essentially friendly view of the UFO humanoid people,” he noted at the time. “Betty Hill continues quite active on social justice fronts and maintains a strong interest in UFO related matters. I have had an excellently helpful correspondence with this extraordinary person, beginning early in the fall of 1988.” Salter also came to visit with Betty Hill and believed that his tall humanoid resembled the being that the Hills had called “The Examiner.”

Additional Notes:
Remembering that my friend and colleague Bret Oldham, an “alien abductee” himself and the author of Children of the Greys, had also expressed that he had felt that he had experienced positive health improvements related to his experiences, I asked him to further expound upon them here. “Although I never noticed an increase in overall body hair in my case, I did notice it with facial hair,” Bret wrote. “The fast growing finger and toenails and hair is something I too experience. I have pondered the idea that it has something to do with being taken through the dimensional portal or where we are taken in that time is different in that realm than in ours. We are actually gone longer than just the hour or two in our time and thus when we are returned our normal growth of hair and nails has increased. Another possibility is that our own body molecular structure changes and like our energy (chi) vibration is increased by the dimensional portal (and) so is our physical body which may account for the increased rate of hair and nail growth.”

A physician who in recent years has cared for Salter and was open to his “ET encounters” and even entered the “beneficial ramifications” part into his basic medical report, noted that the positive health changes were consistent with Human Growth Hormone.

Recently in touch with John Salter again, after many years, I learned that he had legally changed his name to John Hunter Gray in 1995. His father was essentially a full-blooded Native American (Mi’kmaq, St. Francis Abenaki, and St. Regis Mohawk) who had been adopted and partially raised by a family in New England with the last name of Salter.